Knight Letter No. 3

Numbers < T /"> v August, 1975

THE LEWIS CARROLL SOCIETY /^, Ht.ltMSD OF NORTH AMERICA

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D Visit to Wye Plantation

On May 3, 1975, the Lewis Carroll Society, at the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.,
visited the Houghtons' home, Wye Plantation, near Annapolis, to view the Houghton Lewis Carroll
collection, which is housed in a room of its own in the library wing. In addition, an exhibition of specially
selected items from the collection had been set up in an adjoining room, in observance of the Society's visit.

The collection is one of extraordinary variety and extent, containing numerous first editions both of the
Alice books— including The Nursery Alice— ind of Carroll's other works; many of the translations of the
Alice books; copies of Dodgson's pamphlets, including some of the rarest; and copies of a remarkable
number of books which either pdocody Alice or which imitate the Alice books' style and structure in order
to amuse while teaching (e.g. Alice in Orchestra-Land). Some of the rarer items include several of Tenniel's
original pencil sketches for the Alice books*, some of Furniss' sketches for Sylvie and Bruno, Isa Bowman's
copy of the stage Alice, with annotations in Carroll's hand, sheet music for songs in the Alice books, an
Alice tea caddy of the period, and an antique mechanical Hatter.

The Houghton collection also includes some unusual personal items: Lewis Carroll's pocket watch, his copy
of the Bible (inscribed to him by his parents), a little ring which belonged to Alice Liddell, and a china
figure of a large (nearly life-size) russet -colored cat curled up asleep and remarkably life-like, which once
belonged to Alice Liddell. Placed on a cushion in the center of the main exhibition table, it was virtually
the first object one saw on entering and immediately set a charming and informal note to the visit.

Mr. Houghton invited the members of the Society to examine and peruse any or all of this material at their
leisure, and for several hours the members enjoyed a feast of CarroUiana unlike any other, browsing and
exploring shelves, each intent on his/her individual adventure.

The exhibition of specially selected materials had been set up by Mr. Bud Folts, librarian of the Washington
Cathedral, who is thoroughly familiar with the contents of Mr. Houghton's rare book collection, including
the Lewis Carroll material. Mr. Folts, who had been mainly instrumental in arranging for the Society's
visit, gave an introductory talk on the Carroll collection and greatly enhanced the value and enjoyment of
the Society's visit by putting his extensive bibliographical knowledge at the members' disposal, answering
the many questions put to him throughout the visit with patience and interest.

As an expression of appreciation, the Society presented Mr. Houghton with a framed copy of the intro-
ductory verses to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, done in calligraphic script by Alice Berkey, one of the
Society's members.

The Society's consensus was that it, too, had had a golden afternoon long to be remembered.

J.H.

*A number of others, belonging to the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, had been on view
in New York City earlier in the year.

Note: The Society voted unanimously to make Mr. Houghton its first honorary member, and a letter apprising
him of this was sent to him shortly afterwards.

D New York Times, January 22, 1898

First Edition of Lewis Carroll's Books
The early works of "Lewis Carroll" Dodgson are much rarer than one might suppose, the first edition of
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," 1866, being especially scarce. Copies of that delightful book in the
original cloth, with John Tenniel's illustrations, are much sought after by collectors, and have been sold
privately for as high as $60 and $75. Charles B. Foote's copy, bound by Stikeman, with an autograph letter
inserted, brought $57.50 in this city on February 20, 1895.

"Through the Looking Glass," 1872, is not as rare as "Alice," though it seldom occurs for sale. Mr. Footer's
copy, in a Stikeman binding, sold for $15, and Maxwell's and Bierstadt's, both in the original cloth, for
$10.50 and $11. "Phantasmagoria," 1869, is scarce, but not valuable, Foote's going for $2.25 and Bierstadt's
for $2.75, while the other Carroll books, from "The Hunting of the Snark," 1876, down to Sylvie and Bruno
Concluded," 1893, bring at auction from $2.75 to $2 each. "Rhyme and Reason," 1883, is perhaps an
exception, for Foote's copy brought $4.25, and Bierstadt's $6.

D Society Publication Program to Begin in Fall

This fall the Society will begin publishing a series of occasional chapbooks dealing, in accordance with our
purpose, with aspects of the life, work, time and influence of Lewis Carroll. Each chapbook will contain
several thematically related articles and will be handsomely designed and printed in a limited numbered
edition. The first number will be devoted to studies in Carroll bibliography and will contain three pieces:
a textual study of "Three Sunsets," utilizing the Houghton manuscript copy, by Bud Folts, Jr.; an
annotated 1974 Carroll bibliography by Edward Guiliano; and assuming the New York University Library
is able to cooperate, an assessment of the Alfred C. Berol Collection by Warren Weaver.

The chapbook program will be administered by the Publications Committee. Booklets will be issued on an
irregular basis depending upon availability of funds and suitable articles. Chapbooks will be free to
members. Initially the costs will be met through membership dues, sales, and private contributions. It is
hoped that the more significant articles can be periodically collected in an anthology. The series will not
only advance Carroll schblarship, but will publicize our society and hopefully attract new members.

Members are encouraged to participate in the program by contributing articles, suggestions for articles and
chapbooks, and by volunteering to assume responsibility for producing a chapbook in cooperation with
the Publications Committee. Our second chapbook will tentatively focus on Alice Liddell. Another article
or two is needed.

E.G.

D Carrolliana

Belt buckles with high-quaHty reproductions of scenes from the Alice books are being produced by
Bergamot Brass Works (origin unknown). Tenniel's "The Mad Tea Party," and "Through the Looking
Glass" are two of the illustrations faithfully reproduced. The latter has Tenniel's Alice entering the
looking glass on one side of the buckle and his illustration of Alice exiting on the other side. Approximate
size: 2Va x 3 inches. Price: approximately ten dollars.

The Cheshire Cat and the Knitting Sheep are featured in unusual 22" x 28" posters, obtainable at $3.50
each from March, Milligan & Co., 7315 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, Maryland 20014.

One-of-a-kind tie-died and hand -painted T-shirts, one featuring Alice's CaterpUlar, are available at $15.00
each from Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's in New York.

A do-it-yourself cut-out pillow, featuring Walt Disney's Alice, comes from Ameritex Screen Prints, and can
probably be purchased at novelty stores.

Alice Berkey, who found the Caterpillar T-shirt above, also sent us illustrations from a 7-piece rubber stamp
set made by Multi-print of Milan, Italy. The set is available in toy shops for $4.25.

D Notable Carrollian Publications Since February 1975

• Lewis Carroll, A //ce's Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by Arthur Rackham (New York: Viking,
1975), 9V2 X VA in., 162 pp., $6.95. Handsome edition with excellently reproduced color and black and
white illustrations. Includes Austin Dobson's "Proem."

• Lewis Carroll, The Pig-Tale, illustrated by Leonard B. Lubin (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975)
lOU X VA in., 32 pp. $4.95. Some stanzas and illustrations appear in Cricket: The Magazine for Children,
2, No. 8 (April 1975), 31-35. Handsome edition of the tale taken from Sylvie and Bruno.

• Lewis Carroll, T/ie Walrus and the Carpenter (New York: Warne, 1975). $2.95. Paperback, illustrated
children's book. Part of nonsense books series.

• Edward Lucie-Smith, The Invented Eye: Masterpieces of Photography 1839-1914 (New York: Paddington
Press, 1975). Carroll discussed in introduction and four well-known Carroll photographs are reproduced.

• John Ciardi and Miller Williams, "A Burble Through the Tulgey Wood, ''How Does a Poem Mean?

2nd ed., (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975), ch. 2, pp. 14-47. Extended discussion of Jabherwocky
and brief discussion of The Crocodile and Father William.

• Joanna Richardson, Dod^son in Wonderland, History Today, 25, No. 2 (February 1975), 110-117. Flawed
and tired discussion. Illustrated with photographs and Tenniel drawings.

• Mary Breasted, Afemora6//w of Lewis Carroll Moves on to N.Y.U. Library, The New York Times, 19 March
1975, pp. 49, 67, col. 1. Discusses Alfred C. Berol Collection recently donated to N.Y.U.

• Alvin C. Kibel, rev. of Play, Games and Sport: The Literary Works of Lewis Carroll, by Kathleen Blake,
Victorian Studies, 18, No. 3 (March 1975), 370-72. Expresses dissatisfaction.

D Library of Congress Exhibit Concerns A //ce Manuscript

At the time of the annual meeting of the Society of May 3, 1975, the Library of Congress mounted a small
exhibit for our members. This one-case display consisted of several books, including both the Appleton and
Macmillan 1866 Alices, the latter containing original Tenniel pencil drawings. Two typewritten items were
most interesting. One was a letter dated January 25, 1950 from Sir John Forsdyke of the British Museum
thanking Luther Evans, the Librarian of Congress, for the gift of the Alice manuscript and for a list of the
contributors who paid for the manuscript. This list of contributors, to my knowledge, has never been made
public.

The second item was four typewritten pages by Luther Evans entitled The Return of Alice. In this he tells
how, when nursing a case of measles, he saw that the Alice manuscript was going to be auctioned by
Eldridge Johnson's widow. At that point he had the idea of buying the manuscript and presenting it as a
gift to the British Museum. This idea was enthusiastically accepted by Lessing Rosenwald, Dr. Rosenbach
and John Fleming. The manuscript was purchased for $50,000 and, just before its presentation to the
British, was almost left in the seat of the London boat train!

Mr. Evans, in his presentation, remarked that the gift was made "by a group of citizens who wanted to
perform an act of cultural reparation and also as an act of thanks for the grand defense of Western
civilization and liberties of all men from German might and terror while Americans were engaged in
arguments over whether international affairs were of any concern to them."

D.H.S.

D Notice of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America including mention of the Knight Letter
and plans for an anthology appeared in member David Greene's column, "Children's Literature
Journals," Phaednis: A Journal of Children's Literature Research, 2, No. 1 (Spring 1975), 18.

E.G.

D Publications: Looking Ahead

A new edition of Alice will be brought out in New York by Thomas Y. Crowell in the fall. The Hunting
of the Snark with Ralph Steadman's illustrations should be out for Christmas. The New York publisher
is Clarkson N. Potter; the British publisher is Michael Dempsey. Steadman is profiled and his Snark
briefly discussed in Playboy, June 1975, p. 168 (see below). In February 1976, Crowell will publish a
translation of Jean Gattegno's Carroll biography, Lewis Carroll: A Life, Fragments of a Loo king-Glass.
A review of the Gattegno book and a mixed review of Kathleen Blake's book by Edward Guiliano will
appear in the fall in Children's Literature IV (Temple Univ. Press). An unfavorable review by Donald
Rackin of Blake's book will appear this fall in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology. Next spring
our anthology, tentatively titled, The Lewis Carroll Scrapbook: New Essays and Unpublished Works will
be published by Clarkson N. Potter. Potter will also publish a new book by John Fisher in the spring,
The Alice in Wonderland Cookbook. Yes, recipes for all the food items mentioned in the Alice books are
given. Looking very far ahead, Potter will bring out the "lost" second part of CanoWs Symbolic Logic in
the fall of 1976.

E.G.

D Ralph Steadman pen ultimate

To look at Londoner Ralph Steadman's book of drawings, A mer/ca, you'd think he'd seen only awful
things in this country. "Not at all," he says. "There was a certain shock. But I was looking for something
to put my hang-ups on." Steadman, however, swings wildly from enthusiastic praise of some of the
quahties he's seen here ("One morning in Brooklyn Heights we missed the garbage men. They were
already down the road, but they came back and got our garbage. That knocked me out.") to bitter
disappointment with others ("I think people are being dishonest with themselves. If they'd only bloody
own up a bit. But instead, it's people grabbing around, it's rats in a corner.") He should know about rats.
He was a ratcatcher before he started drawing, which was in 1956. Welsh-born Steadman began as a
technical draftsman. After a failed attempt to become a pilot, he learned to draw through a correspondence
course and started free-lancing. Though his work had appeared in most of Britain's magazines and news-
papers, it wasn't until Hunter Thompson took him to the Kentucky Derby that his drawings became truly
deranged. Because Steadman calls his current project an "impossible journey by an improbable crew in
search of a creature that doesn't exist," it might sound as if he's headed for more insanity, the same old
edge he and Thompson reached for in their Fear and Loathing pieces for Rolling Stone. Actually, he's
illustrating a children's book by Lewis Carroll called Hunting of the Snark. "I think Hunter and I did a
fairly good number and I also think it was time to wrap it up." At 38, he claims, "Working on the edge all
the time can get a bit tiring. Certain things I did in the Sixties I know I couldn't do now. I wonder where
I ever found the energy. I think The Snark is nicely different. There's no ax to grind. I'm just not vicious
and nasty like my drawings. It may be that behind all that aggression is a man a little bit afraid of what he
sees. I'd Uke to do happy things now."

From Playboy — June, 1975
-4-

D Dr. Warren Weaver is preparing a revised edition of his check list of translations, that first appeared
in Alice in Many Tongues. He would appreciate hearing from members. His address is 40 Lillis Road,
RR 3, New Milford, Conn. 06776.

D An interesting analysis of the typography and illustration of Alice in Wonderland from Tenniel to
Dali, by Sarah Ellis, is in Amphora, No. 19, journal of the Alcuin Society of Canada. $2.50 from
P.O. Box 89108, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

D The Knight Letter is your publication. We would like to see all of our members involved in producing
this newsletter, and contributions are eagerly sought and welcomed. The next issue will appear before the
end of the year. Please send items of interest to Stan Marx, 15 Sinclair Martin Drive, Roslyn, New York 11576
by October 15th.